Dear Dakota,
She’s just not as good at it as you were, buddy. Look at the picture down there, dude. She’s simply not as good at it as you were.
In the first place, she doesn’t look up when we come inside. She’s so submissive, so she looks down and wiggles. You were submissive, too, but you lifted your head to look at us briefly. Little eye contact, of course, but we understood that about you.
And then there’s the tail issue. We could hear your mighty tail thumping all the way up the stairs, beating out a rhythm of welcome. She has no real tail, nothing to make noise with.
Don’t get me wrong–we love her as much as you did and we are taking very good care of her. She’s your baby, after all. But she’s not you. Nobody else is you. And now, 2 days short of 15 months after you hustled out of our lives, I still get tears in my eyes thinking about you, especially about your departure. Anyway, I love you, sweet potato.
If I’d known how much of my heart you would take when you left, would I have let you knit yourself into the fabric of my heart so tightly that your absence would unravel so much? I would. It’s mending, sweet boy. And it was worth it. All of it and then some. We’d stop the car again. We’d make the long ride home again. We’d take the leg again. You were really never any trouble at all, DD.
Love,
Your Woman
